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Review: 'Ben Levin Group'
'Pulse of a Nation'   

-  Album: 'Pulse of a Nation'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '6th December 2010'

Our Rating:
It's fair to say that in this line of work one should learn to expect the unexpected. You simply never know what will come your way next. Ok, so often, I find I have to be prepared for disappointment, and for an endless flow of mundane releases accompanied by some truly awful hyperbolic press bumph that’s so badly written it has to be seen to be believed.

Of course, in the sea of mediocrity there are always the beacons of light that stand out and more than compensate the tedium. Then there are those albums that simply bewilder. 'Pulse of a Nation' falls into this category, and not simply because it utterly defies genre categorisation. The band describe it as 'symphonic freak music - Nine Inch Nails meets Steve Vai and Dmitri Shostakovich'. Well, I always say that if you're going to record an album detailing the last moments of mankind, you might as well go all out for it.

It's become something of a standard practice to conclude an album with a long track, maybe ten or even fifteen minutes worth of sonic exploration. Ben Levin and cohorts turn this custom on its head and begin 'Pulse of a Nation' with a forty-one minute epic. Well, sort of. In actual fact, the first track, 'Pulse of a Nation' is the album in its entirety. The eight tracks that follow are the same music, cut into more manageable segments, at least as far as I can discern. Confused? I sure as hell was, but ultimately, after exploring this truly monstrous, sprawling, disorientating, genre-melting behemoth, I concluded that it as all part of the appeal and decided to review the album in its fragmented state for simplicity's sake.


'Overture' introduces the album by managing to incorporate all of its elements within a time-frame of under three minutes, ranging from rolling pianos, neo-classical string arrangements, soaring, bombastic prog lead guitar breaks and grinding metal guitars.


And so it is that 'One Breaks Through' straddles post, prog and soft rock, and audaciously incorporates 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' played in the style of Brian May (or the Darkness / My Chemical Romance, depending on your age I suppose).


'Pulse' begins with a skittering synth before it's buried beneath a mess of distortion and ultra-heavy percussion, over which yelled vocals, rendered only partially intelligible by distortion inform us that 'this is the pulse of a nation'. It's actually rather disturbing. It's immediately followed by 'Ill From the Poisons of Your Loving', on which slinky funk melds with post-rock, avant-jazz and prog extravagance to unexpected success despite the rather excessive symphonic noodling toward the end. The haunting, distant echoes of guitar and piano on 'Sleep' make for a well-timed and interesting change of pace, and explores 'The Wall' era Pink Floyd territory with the additional aid of a violin. Consequently, having been lulled into a tranquil space, the mid-section of 'Catacomb' hits with blinding impact as white noise and distortion overload erupts from seemingly nowhere.


The well of inspiration isn't dry yet, though, as closer 'We Deteriorate We Thrive' manages to take a turn for the Celtic folk while stepping up the symphonic rock hammer-ons, before a deluge of sludge distortion drowns everything in the dramatic, skull-crushing finale.


Whether you're going to like 'Pulse of a Nation' or not is of course purely a matter of taste, but the ambition and imagination that this album demonstrates is undeniable.


Ben Levin Group on MySpace
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Ben Levin Group - Pulse of a Nation